King Dagobert was a mediaeval patron of arts in France.  He had the walls of St. Denis (which he built) hung with rich tapestries set with pearls and wrought with gold.  At the monastery of St. Florent, at Saumur in 985, the monks wove tapestries, using floral and animal forms in their designs.  At Poitiers there was quite a flourishing factory as early as 1025.  Tapestry was probably first made in France, to any considerable extent, then, in the ninth century.  The historian of the monastery of Saumur tells us an interesting incident in connection with the works there.  The Abbot of St. Florent had placed a magnificent order for “curtains, canopies, hangings, bench covers, and other ornaments,... and he caused to be, made two pieces of tapestry of large size and admirable quality, representing elephants.”  While these were about to be commenced, the aforesaid abbot was called away on a journey.  The ecclesiastic who remained issued a command that the tapestries should be made with a woof different from that which they habitually used.  “Well,” said they, “in the absence of the good abbot we will not discontinue our employment; but as you thwart us, we shall make quite a different kind of fabric.”  So they deliberately set to work to make square carpets with silver lions on a red ground, with a red and white border of various animals!  Abbot William was fortunately pleased with the result, and used lions interchangeably with elephants thereafter in his decorations.

At the ninth century tapestry manufactory in Poitiers, an amusing correspondence took place between the Count of Poitou and an Italian bishop, in 1025.  Poitou was at that time noted for its fine breed of mules.  The Italian bishop wrote to ask the count to send him one mule and one tapestry,—­as he expressed it, “both equally marvellous.”  The count replied with spirit:  “I cannot send you what you ask, because for a mule to merit the epithet marvellous, he would have to have horns, or three tails, or five legs, and this I should not be able to find.  I shall have to content myself with sending you the best that I can procure!”

In 992 the Abbey of Croyland, in England, owned “two large foot cloths woven with lions, to be laid before the high altar on great festivals, and two shorter ones trailed all over with flowers, for the feast days of the Apostles.”

Under Church auspices in the twelfth century, the tapestry industry rose to its most splendid perfection.  When the secular looms were started, the original beauty of the work was retained for a considerable time; in the tenth century German craftsmen worked as individuals, independently of Guilds or organizations.  In the thirteenth century the work was in a flourishing condition in France, where both looms were in use.  The upright loom is still used at the Gobelin factory.

As an adjunct to the stained glass windows in churches, there never was a texture more harmonious than good mediaeval tapestry.  In 1260 the best tapestries in France were made by the Church exclusively; in 1461 King Rene of Anjou bequeathed a magnificent tapestry in twenty-seven subjects representing the Apocalypse, to “the church of Monsieur St. Maurice,” at Angers.